Introduction

Our guiding research questions include:

  • How have Washington public schools been funded in the past few years (NEED YEARS), particularly for districts serving high-poverty and students of color?
  • How have McCleary school finance reforms changed schools funding sources per pupil?
  • How have these changes varied across districts?
  • How do schools spend their resources?

B1: Revenue source for high- and low-poverty districts

Federal, state, and local revenue source for high- and low-poverty districts

  • Poverty defined using US Census SAIPE District Estimates for 2019
  • Poverty percentage calculated by (Estimated Number of Relevant Children 5 to 17 years old in Poverty Related to the Householder/Population of Relevant Children 5 to 17 years of Age)
  • Plots include the mean with standard error bars of adjusted dollar values for each revenue source
  • No significant changes from 2015-2019 for each revenue category on regression adjusted values for high and low poverty districts
  • As expected, low poverty districts receive a greater share of local revenue per student compared to high poverty districts
  • High poverty districts receiver a greater share of state and federal revenue per student compared to low poverty districts

B2: Revenue source for districts serving students of color

  • I didn’t add error bars due to overlap. Adding would be simple if it’s necessary
  • More change between years across all quartiles, no consistent slope from 2015-2019
  • Interesting groups for each revenue source
  • Federal revenue has quartiles 1st, 2nd, 3rd grouped together below top quartile
  • State has highest and lowest quartiles receiving a greater dollar amount, when mid-ranged quartiles receive less in comparison
  • Local appears to be the inverse of federal, with top quartile receiving less local revenue compared to all other quartiles

B3: Spatial distribution of school funding

OGR data source with driver: ESRI Shapefile 
Source: "/private/var/folders/vp/kyx63ql12dggnl_3zsdqpsh80000gn/T/RtmpLwkzWl/53", layer: "53"
with 295 features
It has 18 fields

Demographic Maps

Revenue Maps

McCleary Maps

  • Difference is calculated as % change in revenue per pupil over 3 year period (2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 3 year average) to difference of the two year average (2018-19 and 19-2020), divided by average of pre-McCleary as base to get percentage change

B4: Expenditure categories

  • We focus on the 2019-2020 school year, the second year of the McCleary reform.